This invention relates generally to stringed musical instruments of the guitar family. More particularly the invention is directed to an attachment for a conventional guitar or the like by which the performer, during play, can bend, i.e. slightly change the pitch of, a selected string or strings.
The preferred form of the invention includes a mechanism by which the performer can actuate the bending function by body movement alone, and hence without interfering or interrupting complete manual and digital activity in playing the instrument. More particularly, holding the guitar in conventional fashion, typically but not necessarily supported by a neck strap, the performer moves his hips laterally. This movement serves to actuate an arm projecting from the instrument, and the motion of the arm is translated, by the mechanism of the present invention, to increasing the tension imposed on the selected string, thereby bending the pitch of that string. In the preferred form of the invention to be described and illustrated herein, the selected string is the second, but it will be understood that the invention is applicable to any string, as well as to any form of guitar, including acoustic and electric.
When the actuating force is removed from the arm, by reverse movement of the performer's body, the string returns to its original tension and pitch.
The attachment structure of the present invention provides convenient means for mounting an additional bending mechanism governing the pitch of a different string. In the present illustrative form of the invention the additional bending mechanism is finger-operated and bends the pitch of the sixth string, slightly lowering its pitch.
The attachment of the present invention can be readily mounted on a guitar by the user, and can be demounted when desired, without disfiguring or marring the surface of the guitar in any way. This is accomplished by the use of the existing lower strap attachment screw, provided with virtually all guitars.
The principal object of the invention is thus to provide a novel device for attachment to a guitar by which the performer, during play, can bend the pitch of a string. Other objects are to provide, in such a device, means permitting the performer to bend a string without any interference with his finger or hand movement; to provide such a device easily mountable on a guitar without the need for making screw holes or the like, which would disfigure the guitar if the attachment device were later removed; and for other and additional objects and purposes as will be understood from the following description of a preferred embodiment of the invention, taken in connection with the accompanying drawings.